82% of pubs charge over £4 for a pint

This comes after recent research revealed the average cost of a pint of lager had risen by 35p from January to July 2023 to £4.58.

Of the poll’s 528 respondents, 40% charged £4 to £4.99 for a pint of lager at their pub.

Just over a third (32%) of respondents charged £5 to £5.99, and 9% sold pints of lager for £6 to £6.99.

Furthermore, 16% of respondents charged £3 to £3.99 for a pint, and only 2% charged £2 to £2.99.

Only 1% of pub operators said they sold pints of lager for £7 to £7.99

The average price of a pint of lager at the Royal Dyche in Burnley, Lancashire is around £3.80.

'Everything's going up'

Every year for 10 years, the owner Justine Lorriman has put the price up by just 10p. This kept her customers happy as they knew what to expect as January rolled around.

However, in 2024, she’s preparing to hike the price by more than 10p as “everything seems to be going up”.

She said brewers had raised their prices not once, not twice, but three times, but she understood that their hands were also tied.

She’s currently in the process of negotiating with suppliers to try and secure better deals.

Lorriman’s “biggest fear” is that guests wouldn’t be willing to pay the higher prices. “It’s always that worry that you’re going to lose that trade, and if you don’t keep your regular trade, those are your bill payers,” she added.

She wishes the Government would step in to help the hospitality sector through a reduction of keg beer alcohol duty, even if it were just for a year.

Price hikes

“It’s not a case of making any more money, [we’re] making less money but working twice as hard to increase turnover,” she said.

Talking of price increases, British Beer & Pub Association chief executive Emma McClarkin recently said that pubs and brewers had faced huge cost increases in supply chain costs over the last few years, and despite this, the cost of beer had only increased by 12%, half the rate of other consumer goods that have on average risen by 24%.

She added: “Brewers have fought hard to absorb costs to avoid passing them on to consumers. However, as the costs of doing business mount, and, most notably, beer duty is put up by over 10%, brewers have had no choice but to increase prices to stay in business.

“No business wants to put up prices in a cost-of-living crisis, but brewers have been forced to by rampant inflation and an increased overall tax bill of £225m in duty. Our sector needs the Government to bring down inflation and rule out any further increases in beer duty so our brewers and pubs can thrive, and consumers can continue to enjoy affordable beer.”